summer 2009 jdorama #3

Saru no Lock
I watched the last 20 minutes of this 30 minute episode on fastforward and while reading manga. I have no idea what the plot is about apart from some idiot who can open a lot of locks. It must have lost me when decency went out the window in the "masturbating to an AV" scene, and their case of the week is panty-snatchers who run a brothel. I must be of the wrong gender.

Kareinaru Spy
I had moderately high hopes for this because Nagase Tomoya has such a talent for crackpot humour (he was awesome in My Boss My Hero) and I ended up being so disappointed even though Mao-chan was in the first episode. It didn't know what it wanted to be, and so came across being camp and melodramatic and unconvincing and trite all at once, which might be a talent in itself. The humour is so highstrung "hey laugh at this" that it fails to be funny, the emotional moving bits come out of nowhere and don't develop properly to actually be moving, the plot doesn't have an ounce of intelligence to actually make sense, let alone convince anyone, and all these combined makes it unable to build any tension for you to give a damn about the story or the characters. And wow, from all the fanboys of Fukada Kyoko I had no idea she was so bad at acting.

Orthros no Inu
Finally! Something possibly worth watching this season!! At the moment I'm still not sure about the plot, which could turn really wtf-ghey or actually be cool, but at least the script gets a good tone and pace going. It's also refreshing to see Takki in a villain role for once, and unlike Naruse in Maou, he actually doesn't seem redeemable - which could again turn out to be good or really terrible.

I went into this knowing I liked most of the main actors (not loved, unfortunately all my fave actors aren't in dramas this season..T-T), and my expectations have been exceeded. Takki pulls off the creepy/ruthless intelligence nicely, and Ryou-chan, surprisingly, gets the gullible sweet-natured teacher quite well. I hope his character grows some brains or I'm going to start being annoyed at him, which I haven't done since Last Friends and I don't want to because he's adorable when sweet-natured (which he isn't IRL XDD). Asami continues to impress me with the range of her acting ♥ She's like (Toda) Erika...even if she gets two roles that are similar, she still manages to make those characters distinct from each other. But I've been most impressed by Hikaru~ Hikaru~~♥ Hikaru ♥♥ (...deja vu?) I was pretty excited when he said on his graduation that he wanted to find work in dramas and he got cast here, but wow ♥ Admittedly I haven't watched any of his previous acting so I can't compare, and I think he missed out compared to Yabu or Nakajima, but he just seemed so...natural. And embarking on his acting career with a villain role, that is cool ♥ If he goes on like this, the fact that he's not as well favoured as say, Yabu or Yama-chan or Nakayama, will actually be a boon, because he won't be limited to "lead roles" and confined to "acting cool". 支持小光跟斗真一樣走實力路綫 ♥ 竟然演小混混都演的那麽帥~ 而且不像同年的J家孩子，擺出個帥架子就完事~好自然的冷酷~帥~~支持支持~~


I think there's only Kochikame and Otomen left now that I might still be interested in ==; I don't have much hopes for either. I don't know if I can even stick to Kochikame until the 3rd episode. But Junno LOL! (差別對待？）